The Blog

Women In Media; Sochi Olympic Courses; Mountain Top Removal

February 21, 2014

This week on To The Contrary, our panelists discuss the 2014 Women In The Media Report, whether Sochi's Olympic courses are too extreme for women, and Mountain Top Removal that threatens lives in West Virginia.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton: “For women and minorities, unless they push devilishly hard, they don’t make it to the top.”

Mercedes Viana Schlapp: “Media institutions obviously are not providing the support that women need to rise.”

Kim Gandy: “Women are underrepresented in the media in the same way they’re underrepresented across male-dominated institutions.”

Rina Shah: “The overwhelming number of reporters that I have interacted with have been female. So, it is changing, the tide is turning.”

Bonnie Erbe: “Sheryl Sandberg makes the case that the women’s rights revolution has stalled. What are millennials going to do about it?”

Sochi Olympic Courses

Are Sochi's Olympic courses too extreme for both genders or just women?

Rina Shah: "I think it's sexist and I think it would be wrong to basically modify and alter those slopes to make it easier for women."

Bonnie Erbe: “The extreme sports pushing things to the limit is another idea that I think has to be modified.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton: “We are now only beginning to see women try their limits. The slopes are already altered for women...It's been altered for women according to what they've shown they can do.”

Kim Gandy: "But when the women are competing against the women, and the men are competing against the men...you want to have a course that's going to demonstrate who's the strongest and who's the best."

Mercedes Viana Schlapp: "In terms of military combat...if the women are capable and they're able to reach those standards when they're doing their boot camps and going through the process and they're able to succeed then they should be allowed to be in the frontline."

Mountain Top Removal

Mountain Top Removal threatens the lives of West Virginia's residents.

Rina Shah: "No administration, Republican or Democrat, has held Mountain Top Removal to what it should be: banned."

Bonnie Erbe: “We tried to do an interview for this story with Shelly Moore Capito who is the Repubican from West Virginia now running to, and probably will, replace Jay Rockefeller in the senate. We were unsuccessful.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton: “If you want to figure out what an unregulated environment looks like, you look at the state of West Virginia.”

Kim Gandy: "Big coal has been such a support to politicians of both parties, that they found it hard to challenge Mountain Top Removal."

Janet Keating: "We have all these flattened mountains. Why don't we have solar panels on them?"

Be sure to tune in this week for more discussion! Click here to check your local listings.

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The Host

To The Contrary Host: Bonnie Erbé

Bonnie Erbé is a nonpartisan, award-winning American journalist and television host based in the Washington, D.C. area who has ...